Dictionary

arc of history en · NOUN

Etymology

Popularized by Barack Obama, and based on an older metaphor by abolitionist Theodore Parker, later popularized by Martin Luther King Jr.: “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”.

Meanings

1. The idea that history has a direction or purpose that “bends” (or can be bent) towards some goal.
   • If Jim Yong Kim wants to ‘bend the arc of history’, he should start by addressing long-standing inequalities in his own organisation[.] 2012 November 27, Chris Simms, “World Bank reforms must embrace racial equality and accountability”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
   • We understand the great arc of human history bends towards people coming together in ever greater numbers — from tribes to cities to nations — to achieve things we couldn’t on our own. 2017 May 25, Mark Zuckerberg, “Mark Zuckerberg’s Commencement address at Harvard”, in The Harvard Gazette:
   • The nationalist was urging his listeners to question the prevailing narrative, to think the unthinkable, to bend the arc of history. 2019, Andrew Marantz, “Prologue”, in Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation, Penguin, →ISBN, page 1:
   • For the roughly half a million members here, many of whom joined in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic and two Donald Trump inaugurations, the arc of history feels more like a freefall. 2025 June 26, Sam Wolfson, “On r/collapse, people are ‘kept abreast of the latest doom’. Its moderators say it’s not for everyone”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
   • If Obama’s interests run toward history, so does his rhetoric. “It's the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day,” he said the evening of his first election. 2015 December 21, David A. Graham, quoting Barack Obama, “The Wrong Side of 'the Right Side of History'”, in The Atlantic:

Forms

Relateds

story arc · end of history · Whig history

wikipedia: Barack Obama · wikipedia: Theodore Parker · wikipedia: Martin Luther King Jr.